Sunday, November 24, 2019

And People Say Philosophy Is Irrelevant



Posted by at 2 comments:

Facts Are Stupid Things


“Was it Russia or Ukraine?” Wallace asked Kennedy after noting that Fiona Hill had rebuked GOP lawmakers for suggesting Ukraine was behind the attack.

“I don’t know,” Kennedy replied. “Nor do you, nor do any of us, nor do any of us.”

Po-Mo is alive and well in Louisiana!

“The entire intelligence community says it was Russia!” Wallace interrupted.

“Right,” Kennedy agreed. “But it could also be Ukraine. I’m not saying that I know one way or the other. I’m saying that [Fiona Hill] is entitled to her opinion but no rebuttal evidence was allowed to be offered.”

The Deep State is deep; and stateless.  It is everywhere and nowhere.  Besides:  what is truth?  (Hah!  Got you godless heathens with a Bible quote!)

“Republicans in the House wanted to call a witness, a DNC political operative who lobbied the Ukrainian Embassy to be involved, to get involved in the 2016 election,” Kennedy remarked. “We don’t know if Ukraine did that, we don’t know to what extent because they won’t let the president offer his evidence.”

“And that’s why I’ll say once again, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence if you’re not allowed to call your own witnesses,” the senator complained.

Next time a grand jury hands down an indictment, Senator, complain about the lack of witnesses the defense got to present to that jury.  In the meantime, please turn the Senate trial into a months-long circus that keeps this issue alive and green for the voters as next November impends.
Posted by at No comments:

Or Hold Her Breath Until Her Face Turns Blue?

Posted by at 1 comment:

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Notable and Noteworthy

And then there's this:
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, November 22, 2019

Hmmmm....

But it was supposed to be dull, and not at all sexy! Somebody is finding it at least ad interesting as a football game where their team isn't playing. A lot of somebodies, in fact.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Trump Is Still Only Interested

In Trump. He's defending Gallagher because he thinks it wins him votes, enough votes to squeak back into the White House ( he's certainly not doing it to broaden his support). The problem is, his tweet is not an order. Well, that's one problem.
Another is, the military is not passively accepting this severe assault on military order. They are going to force Trump to make an official order, overruling military law and the chain of command. He is as unlikely to do that as he is to make a truly significant and unpopular pardon. He hasn't pardoned Manafort or Stone because those pardons would not win praise from Trump's base. Taking a hard stand against the entire chain of command of the Navy, including his own Secretary of the Navy, would not be a winning fight. (All of his pardons have been in direct defiance if the legal system and good order, but not of persons or cases important enough yo invite government push back.) But what he has done to military order is already bad enough. Trump's desire is for his own political future, probably born out of his fear of prosecution after he leaves office. He is still doing what he was doing in Ukraine: looking out for Trump, not the national interest. If this were a political thriller, it would be obvious by now that Trump is the clear and present danger from which the nation must, and will have to be, rescued.

If the Congress can't do it, the voters will have to.
Posted by at No comments:

MORE COWBELL!


At the same time, however, the report debunks a series of conspiracy theories and insinuations about the F.B.I. that Mr. Trump and his allies have put forward over the past two years, the people said, though they cautioned that the report is not complete. The New York Times has not reviewed the draft, which could contain other significant findings.

Or does it?

The early accounts of the report suggest that it is likely to stoke the debate over the investigation without definitively resolving it, by offering both sides different conclusions they can point to as vindication for their rival worldviews.
Matters not.  The "deep state" is vast and international and right at your elbow just now as you read this.  And it got to Barr and Horowitz and people in government around the globe, and fooled them all and silenced them all and "that's what the word is."

“Well, that’s what the word is,” Trump replied. “That’s what I asked, actually, in my phone call, if you know.”

Host Brain Kilmeade began looking nervous, tapping his fingers and trying to interject. “Right—” he said, but Trump didn’t let him cut in.

“I mean, I asked it very point-blank,” Trump continued. “Because we’re looking for corruption. There’s tremendous corruption. We’re looking for — why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there’s this kind of corruption?” 
If anything Trump said there sounds like a logical argument to you, or even a reasonable statement of assertions, or makes any kind of connected set of proposals leading to a conclusion, valid or otherwise, then you are beyond the reach of common discourse and the merest reasoning.  Because that first sentence is preceded by, and consequent to, this:

“They gave the server to Crowdstrike, or whatever it’s called. Which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian,” Trump said over the phone to the Fox hosts Friday. “Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?” (Again, this server theory is completely debunked nonsense that not even House Republicans will defend.)
Again a) a "server" that does not exist as a physical object; b) a company based in California; c) owned by a Russian who is now an American citizen.  Let's not worry about the details of whether Trump's mention of any of this to Zelensky on July 25 was "point blank," just follow the words.  If you can, that is.  First, "the word" indicates "some people say" status about Crowdstrike and the server-that-isn't.  Second, Trump asked "it," but what "it" is there is anyone's guess.  Then "we're looking for corruption" when all he wants is Zelensky to announce an investigation so Trump has video to put in a campaign ad.  And he alleges corruption when every responsible agency in government has cleared Ukraine to receive the funds.

It's not even word salad; it's just words meant to indicate....things, apparently.  Bad things.  "Word is" passes for sound information.  "If you know" is "READ THE TRANSCRIPT!" again, as if that means anything either.  "very point-blank" means direct and honest, but Trump is neither, ever.  And "corruption," which he repeated three times in three consecutive sentences, to drive the point home:  bad Bad BAD!

And what does it amount to?  Phonemes, finally.  Sounds.  Word-sounding noises.  Nothing that makes the slightest bit of sense.  You cannot challenge such a world view with reason, facts, fact-checking, "debunking," even an exhaustive government report.  Only what is acceptable is accepted; what is not acceptable, is part of the conspiracy to deceive.

How did we as a country get so far down this third-world tin pot dictatorship road?
Posted by at No comments:

Living in Interesting Times


Let's start with this, sent originally to Josh Marshall.  I'm going to add annotations along the way, rather than put my comments at the end:

I’m a former federal corruption AUSA and also a former DOJ attorney. Let me tell you why I think the House isn’t going to court over the failure of Bolton, Pompeo, etc. to appear for testimony.

If the House were to go to the District Court, any ruling would eventually be appealed to the Supreme Court. The earliest any decision would come is next spring or early summer.

If the House impeaches the president, the impeachment will be conducted no later than January, and occur under the Senate’s impeachment rules.

Those rules date to 1986, and could be changed by the Senate for this impeachment.  However, the House rules Nunes & Co. complain about so loudly are the rules established under John Boehner's speakership, and were not changed for the impeachment investigation hearings.  No reason to presume Senate rules would be radically altered, at least not on points related to this trial.

The rules provide that the House managers can issue subpoenas to anyone, presumably including Bolton and Mulvaney. A senator could object that the testimony is irrelevant or covered by privilege. Rule VII provides that a ruling on such questions will usually be made by the Presiding Officer – the Chief Justice, unless he refers the decision to the full Senate. The Chief Justice would likely decide, in the first instance, claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. He would also likely decide questions such as the crime/fraud exception and the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule, as well as questions of waiver of any privilege. Finally, he would rule on subpoenas for the production of documents.

When I wrote about this earlier, I assumed the Senate subpoena power would be the same as the House power.  But when the Senate sits in a trial, those subpoenas may have greater authority.  Then again, this opinions speaks of persons in the government who could be compelled to appear by the Congress' inherent authority (the so-called "inherent contempt" power of Congress).  I don't know that such power would work against Joe or Hunter Biden, for example (maybe against the whistleblower, though).  So my analysis could be correct, or it could be the question of their testimony could come before Chief Justice Roberts as presiding judicial officer of the trial.  I think that raises a Senate trial just a bit too high, however, making it equivalent to an Article III court, and I don't think Roberts would like that.  Sections V and VI of the rules seem to give the Senate broad power to compel witnesses to attend and testify, but all such powers are subject to the rules and powers of the Senate.  As I say, I don't think these rules give the Senate the authority of an Article III court, as the rules expressly place enforcement power of them in the Sergeant at Arms, the same authority who can enforce the inherent contempt power.  But I haven't studied the matter carefully, I'm just idly speculating, again.

I think it is likely that testimony from Mulvaney would be compelled – at least as far as his public statements, and that Bolton and others would be ordered to testify – at least as to some matters. Additional documentary evidence would likely be compelled, as well.
Notice all the discussion of enforcement of demands for testimony or documents assumes application to government employees and documents.  That may or may not support my point above, but it doesn't undermine it at this point.

While a majority of the Senate could vote to overturn the Chief Justice’s ruling, any evidentiary/privilege ruling by him would have a presumption that it was correct. As a political matter, it would be difficult for many Republican senators to vote to overturn an evidentiary ruling by the Chief that is based on the law. (That is different than a motion to dismiss because the evidence is insufficient, where it is the senators’ role to evaluate the weight of the evidence.) Only a handful of Republican senators would have to vote to uphold the Chief Justice’s ruling for a majority to sustain the ruling that testimony or documents should be compelled.

Word is McConnell can't get 51 votes to avoid the trial entirely (which would involve changing the Senate rules for this situation and all others, until the rules are changed again).  I don't think he'd get 51 votes to overturn an evidentiary ruling by Roberts, either.

Chief Justice Roberts will make straight rulings on the evidence and the power of the Senate to compel testimony. That’s the best outcome the House can want. (If he didn’t agree with the House Managers on any point during the trial, the Chief would be unlikely to provide a fifth vote in the Court before the trial to compel the same evidence.)
Not least because it gives the House the chance of making Mulvaney and Pompeo testify (and Perry, if he doesn't hurry up and move on with his announced retirement), it pretty much ends any attempt to drag in the Bidens, or force Schiff to testify.  The House managers (not Trump), would have to present evidence, not Nunes' looney conspiracy theories, as to what possible relevant information they could bring to a trial on whether or not Trump tried to shakedown the Ukrainian government for his political benefit.  If Hunter Biden was crooked as a dog's hind leg and Joe Biden in on a conspiracy with his son up to his eyeballs, it would be grounds for a DOJ investigation, but wholly irrelevant to an impeachment trial.  Same with the whistleblower:  who he or she is is meaningless, as everything he/she reported has been confirmed by documents ("READ THE TRANSCRIPT!") and witnesses.  And calling Schiff?  Why, because Trump didn't like a speech he gave in a committee hearing?  There is actually a Constitutional provision about that, just as there is about impeachment and conviction and removal of a President.  Roberts is not going to preside over a kangaroo court.  By and large, what's why he's there.

Thus, by moving directly to impeachment, the House gets its best chance of winning the testimony of Bolton, Mulvaney, and others, and doing so in a timely fashion. The House likely won’t be able to depose witnesses or examine all the documents in advance, but that’s a small price to pay for obtaining the evidence at the trial.

In addition, a favorable decision can’t be hung up in the courts. The decision of the Senate on procedural rulings, whether by the Presiding Officer or if reviewed, by the full Senate, is final, and not subject to court review. See Nixon v. United States (involving the impeachment of Judge Nixon, not Richard Nixon).

My guess is Speaker Pelosi is aware of this approach, based on her comments today at her presser that the House won’t go to court now to obtain testimony of Pompeo, Maloney, and Bolton. She noted, however, that the information may be available to the Senate.
Further affiant sayeth not.  This is a very reasonable analysis of the state of play and the strategy of the Democrats.  Dragging this out for months and months in hopes creating a Democratic snark hunt that produces a "But HIS e-mails!" against Trump, is a fool's errand, and toys with the very idea of impeachment as a magisterial process not to be undertaken for purely partisan ends (as the impeachment of Clinton was).  Nixon was rightly driven from office because we had Howard Bakers and Arlen Specters in those days, and because he had committed multiple crimes and abuses of office.  We have the crimes and abuses now, but not the caliber of Senator we had then (who knew they were our high water mark in my lifetime?), so the best we can do is follow the process and assure the voters the Democrats are upholding the Constitution, and are not blindly upholding Donald Trump because of:  politics.
Posted by at No comments:

A Good Offense

Have to admit that's not a strategy I'd considered; but it's not a bad idea.
Posted by at No comments:

And Just Because Truth is STILL Getting Its Boots On


While a lie is half-way around the world:
And it all sounds oddly like this:
But worse, Trump is freely making admissions of guilt:

And it doesn't matter; which makes the answer to this question:  No.  Not, at least, when the President is a Republican.
Not even when the President is a crack-pot conspiracy monger; as long as he's Republican.



Posted by at No comments:

Just Reiterating



"That's what the word is."

The "magic words" theory, because I'm quite convinced it's true.  Trump doesn't care about making sense, building rational arguments, defending a claim with reason and evidence (recall the birther conspiracy rant, than ran for years on nothing except more allegations, which were merely "magic words" waved as a talisman and, by repetition, turned into truth.  At least he thought that's how it worked.).  Trump only cares about saying the words.  "CHY-NA."  "Hunter Biden."  "Corruption."  What do they mean?  Precisely what he wants them to mean, of course.  Trump is Humpty-Dumpty, but without the satire.  Trump thinks shouting the magic words is QED and EOD.  And if he says it loudly, at a shout:  win-win!

It's of a piece with his ostrich defense:  if I don't know these people, they don't count against me!
 
Which means Sondland bought his ambassadorship, which is hardly praiseworthy conduct by Trump.  Also, the magic shield:  those I deny are denied, and no longer of effect.

It may be the last hope of the republic is this man ranting in a Senate trial on live national TV.
Posted by at No comments:

Going a Little Deeper


Please let him have the Senate trial he longs for.  As millions of Americans tune in to see their President live, and unfiltered, and in full hysteria mode.

And then, a la "Daisy," talk again about those nuclear codes.
Posted by at No comments:

The Trump Impeachment Defense


How Trump imagines the Senate Trial, only he can talk longer than 50 minutes:
Which will sound like a Shakespearean peroration in his head:
In the end, a Senate trial might be the best campaign ad the Democrats could have:
Yeah, vote for this guy!  What could go wrong?!
Here, let's condense that 57 minutes when he took over a basic cable TV program:
Now, imagine this guy testifying on his own behalf before the Senate, while millions who don't watch FoxNews watch their President unfiltered and unchained.  The LBJ "Daisy" ad would be a punk effort compared to reality and the number of campaign ads the Dems could make from it.

And lest you think Trump doesn't want to go this route:

Posted by at No comments:

The Kangaroo Court of His Dreams

Not because Trump had a change of heart.
And Trump imagines he's going to have the kangaroo court of his dreams:

“President Trump wants to have a trial in the Senate because it’s clearly the only chamber where he can expect fairness and receive due process under the Constitution,” spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement.

“We would expect to finally hear from witnesses who actually witnessed, and possibly participated in corruption – like Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the so-called Whistleblower, to name a few,” Gidley said, referring to House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff, who is leading an impeachment inquiry into Trump. 

Adam Schiff may be one of the prosecutors of Trump in the Senate.   He is not, in any sense, a fact witness in an impeachment trial.  There's no way the Senate produces enough votes to authorize a subpoena to Schiff, much less that he complies with it without a lengthy court fight Trump will insist on taking to the Supremes.  Which would keep this trial green in public memory until this time next year and allow the Democrats to publicly wonder why the Senate can't get anything else done.  So please, Mr. Trump, draw up and insist on your witness list!  Let nothing dissuade you from making those witnesses testify before the Senate!

Then again, Trump also thinks this is the way you impeach (wholly different use of the term, please note) a witness:

“This ambassador [Maria Yovanovich] that everyone says is so wonderful, she wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy,” he said. “This was not an angel, this woman, okay? And there were a lot of things that she did that I didn’t like.”

I'm sure, in his mind, he imagines this is true, and that it is damning.  Reality says otherwise, on both counts.  And when he went on "Fox & Friends" this morning and babbled out:

While insisting that he’s sincerely working to fight corruption at home and abroad, Trump said, “I do want, always, corruption — I say that to anybody!”

It's either a sign of mental decline, or that he doesn't care what words mean, he just thinks they are magical things.  Since he never said "quid pro quo" or "bribery" to Zelensky on any phone call anyone overheard, he's not guilty of a crime.  Since he said "corruption" he's waved the magic wand of concern.  How he uses words don't seem to matter to him; that he uses them, or not, is all that seems to matter.

And due process does not mean "I get to present crack-brained conspiracy theories as a legal defense."  It is also no protection against being your own war room or worse, your own lawyer.  As recent losses in court prove out, Trump is acting as his own attorney through the attorneys he's paying to act as attorneys, but who clearly aren't.
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Final Thoughts of the Day

Yes, we're still right here: Not only a summation of the case against Trump (look, in the days to come, for any recognition from Trump of what this two minutes means to his future), but a succinct statement of the present. Trump is still pursuing a domestic political errand, and he's still doing it through Ukraine. By not doing anything for Ukraine, because he doesn't give a shit about Ukraine. The country is already poison to him. Trump only cares about Trump, how much trouble is that going to cost the nation before he's removed?
Posted by at 2 comments:

Because He Has No Clue

...and it's all about how he feels; about himself.
The Senate's not doing anything anyway. Why not tie it up for a month or three in 2020? What could it hurt?
Posted by at No comments:

I Like The Optics of This

Graham is requesting documents from State regarding both Biden's back in 2016.

So State can freely produce documents to a GOP Senator, but not to House committees? Yeah, that looks honest and fair and not at all about hiding something.
Posted by at No comments:

The Definition of "Useful Idiot"

...is illustrated with this guy's picture.
I mean he seems determined to personify "Being played like a fiddle."
Posted by at No comments:

Well, the outcome is decided

The trial might as well be a farce.

Although what if the Bidens refuse to testify? What force does the Senate have to compel testimony in an impeachment trial, beyond going to the courts to enforce subpoenas? Does the GOP want to leave the trial hanging all that time?

Geniuses, these people.
Posted by at No comments:

Trump Keeps Presenting Reasons

...for me to vote him out of office.

Houston once had a D.A. famous for his record of death penalty cases. I got a piece of campaign mail today from a D.A. candidate promising to not seek the death penalty. A Democratic candidate, not coincidentally.

I've yet to regret voting for Democrats.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)